Robert Christgau's New York

Commiserate with a gig-starved rock critic in D.C., walk through a
Boston music conference without leaving Lansdowne Street, and
you'll thank God you're a New York City boy/girl. There's just so much music
here. The best of what's best about our burg is a simple function
of not just size, but of the hegemony and heterogeneity size now
insures. Because New York is America's art and media capital as
well as an entertainment epicenter, musicians and music fans
gravitate here and venues develop to serve them, attracting more
musicians and more music fans. And because New York is a magnet for
immigrants, the stylistic variety of its clubs and discos has no
parallel.

What may be hard to absorb, however, is how recently this
self-fulfilling prophecy revealed itself. New York has been a
live-music center for as long as there's been pop, and in the '50s and
'60s, it probably supported more folk and jazz clubs (certainly more
affordable jazz clubs) than it does now. But back then rock places
were almost nonexistent--there was nothing like the '90s explosion of
name venues and local joints. So give props to two landmarks that got
the cycle rolling. Both occupy the same spaces under the same owners
as they always have, a heroic feat in a notoriously unstable
business. And both remain excellent places to hear music.

Allan Pepper and Stanley Snadowsky's Bottom Line (15 West 4th
Street, 228-6300) opened in 1974 as a living link to record-biz
largess. A squarish rectangle with no bad seats and a layer of
standing room at the bar, it was designed as a showcase--press tickets
came with a two-drink tab and for as long as the pop mainstream had
its headwaters in singer-songwriterdom, it prospered by accommodating
promo priorities and AOR folk heroes. The initials of Hilly Kristal's
CBGB (315 Bowery, 982-4052) signified country-bluegrass-blues,
but soon the supremely tolerant Hilly had ceded his Bowery dive to the
neighborhood riff-raff who were invented the Anti-AOR, punk
rock--starting with Television and moving on to Patti Smith, Blondie,
the Ramones, and a summer festival featuring such precedent setters as
the Mumps, Milk & Cookies, and Talking Heads. Together the two
spots established new standards of rock audio--the Bottom Line with a
clear, balanced system, CBGB with one configured for mammoth feats of
distortion and projection.

In the late '70s these two spots defined New York's live rock in
sometimes exhilarating tandems--there were nights when you could catch
Loudon Wainwright III on 4th Street and the Ramones a few blocks east,
or Bryan Ferry and then a bill of Talking Heads and the Feelies. But
though neither has been hep for years, they've still mounted as many
good '90s shows as any other venue in town except Steve Weitzman's
brilliantly booked Tramps (now closed) and Irving Plaza
(17 Irving Place, 777-6800), the biz's postpunk link. In the past few
years I've caught memorable performances by the aforementioned
Wainwright, Victoria Williams, and the Holy Modal Rounders at one and
even better ones by Sleater-Kinney, Pavement, and Fluffy further
east--without suffering the physical demands so many newer clubs
impose on their presumably fit young patrons. Although the tables are
crowded at the Bottom Line, your ticket generally assures you a chair,
a boon to anyone's back. CBGB is so deep and narrow the music is hard
to focus on toward the door, but there's so much action that pushing
up along the bar is always an option for the serious fan--who will
also appreciate the raised seats in back, the ideal vantage from which
to observe one of the many thousands of forgettable bands who are
still making their pilgrimages.